BENEATH THE ALPHA'S NAME

Chapter 1: Shadows Over Lincoln

By Jace Vance

"You’re packing light, Vance."

The voice cut through the quiet of the room like a blade snapping open. I didn't flinch. Flinching was a sign of weakness, and in the Sterling household, weakness was a liability. I turned slowly, keeping my hands visible, my chest flat.

My father stood in the doorway. Christopher Sterling looked exactly like the town of Ogalalla thought he was: a prominent, stoic security contractor with eyes the color of winter frost and a jawline that looked carved from limestone. But I knew the truth. I knew about the reinforced basement. I knew about the maps pinned to the walls downstairs, detailed with migration patterns, pack sigils, and kill counts.

"I only brought what I need, sir," I said, my voice steady, stripped of any emotion that could be weaponized against me.

Christopher stepped into the room, his heavy leather boots clicking against the hardwood. He didn't look at me; his eyes tracked the room, analyzing the bare walls, the lack of posters, the absolute absence of a personality. He liked it that way. A ghost leaves no tracks.

He reached down, his calloused fingers tracing the silver latches of my trunk. "Good. Possessions make a man heavy. Heavy men are slow. And slow men get torn apart."

"Yes, sir."

He finally looked at me, his gaze dropping to my chest, then up to my hair. I felt the familiar, suffocating weight in my throat. It was the same suffocation I felt every time I looked at a guy at my old school and had to force my eyes away, burying the heat in my chest so deep I prayed it would suffocate. I was a vault of secrets, and the heaviest one was the fact that I didn't want the life he was carving for me. I didn't want the blood. And I certainly didn't want the daughters of his hunter associates.

Christopher leaned against my desk, crossing his thick arms. "This new academy in Lincoln. It’s a clean slate, Vance. A chance to blend in. Which means you need to start acting like a man who actually belongs in society."

I kept my hands at my sides. "I intend to focus on my studies."

"I don't give a damn about your calculus grades," he snapped, his voice dropping an octave. "I’m talking about your lifestyle. I talked to Garrett before we left the old district. He told me about that girl, Cheyenne. Said it lasted exactly six days before she called him crying because you wouldn't even hold her hand."

My stomach coiled into a tight, hard knot. I forced my face to remain a mask of pure indifference. Because holding her hand made me feel like I was wearing a lead weight, I wanted to say. Because when she looked at me, I felt absolutely nothing.

"We didn't click," I muttered.

"You don't click with anyone," Christopher said, stepping closer, his shadow completely eclipsing mine. "Before her, it was the Miller girl. A week. Then she comes complaining to her father that you're a brick wall. Emotionally dead. I am tired of making excuses for your deficiencies, Vance. It makes me look weak. It makes our bloodline look defective."

He grabbed my chin, his grip tight enough to bruise, forcing me to look directly into his cold eyes.

"When you get to this campus, you find a girl. A real one. You take her out, you show her off, and you make sure she doesn't come crying to me about how emotionally unavailable you are. Do you understand me? You act like a normal, red-blooded Nebraskan man, or so help me, I will find out what the hell is wrong with you myself."

"Understand, sir," I choked out through clamped teeth.

He let go of my face with a dismissive shove. "Finish packing. The truck leaves in ten."

He turned on his heel and strode out, leaving the air in my room tasting like ozone and copper. I rubbed my jaw, my breath hitched in my chest. There was a strange, hot thrumming beneath my skin, a frantic, pulsing rhythm that had been growing louder over the past year. It felt like panic, but heavier. Like something trapped behind a wall, clawing to get out.

I slammed the silver latches of the trunk shut.

The drive from the western sandhills toward Lincoln was five hours of absolute silence. The landscape shifted from vast, empty rangeland to rolling cornfields, the stalks dry and whispering against the highway wind. Christopher kept both hands on the wheel of the heavy Ford, his eyes scanning the tree lines, the ditches, the shadows beneath the overpasses. He wasn't driving; he was patrolling.

Beside my boots on the passenger floorboard sat his heavy leather duffel. I knew what was inside without looking: a breakdown rifle, three silver-alloy hunting knives, and a dozen vials of aconite solution.

As the brick buildings and sprawling campuses of the city finally rose up against the horizon, Christopher slowed the truck, turning down the long, oak-lined avenue that led to Blackwood Ridge Academy. It was an elite, old-money boarding school, the kind of place where wealthy families sent their kids to disappear or excel.

He pulled the truck into the gravel unloading zone near the main dormitory, a massive three-story gothic building covered in dying ivy. Students were everywhere—unloading cars, laughing, shouting across the courtyard. They looked so painfully normal. So safe.

Christopher didn't kill the engine. He kept the truck idling, the vibrations rattling through my bones.

"Listen to me carefully, Vance," he said, not looking at me, his eyes locked on the crowd of students moving past our windows.

"I’m listening."

"This place is too quiet," he murmured, his fingers tapping a rhythmic, militant beat against the steering wheel. "The council has flagged this county. Too many missing hikers in the eastern woods. Too many livestock mutilations ruled as 'wild dogs.' The local authorities are blind, but I am not."

He turned his head slowly, his gaze pinning me to the passenger seat.

"You are my eyes on the inside. You watch the students. You watch the staff. Anyone who avoids the silver silverware in the dining hall, anyone whose eyes catch the light wrong in the dark, anyone who disappears during the full moon, you note it. You keep your eyes wide open for anomalies."

"You sent me here to hunt?" I asked, a sudden spike of dread piercing through that strange, hot thrumming in my veins.

"I sent you here to survive," Christopher corrected coldly. "And to report. If there is a pack breeding in this city, I will tear it out by the roots. Don't disappoint me, Vance. And remember what I said about your personal life. Get a girlfriend. Look normal. Blend into the background."

"Yes, sir."

I grabbed the handle of my silver-plated trunk from the back seat, opened the door, and stepped out into the crisp autumn air. The wind hit me instantly, carrying a heavy, complex barrage of scents, crushed leaves, damp earth, car exhaust, and something else. Something sharp, electric, and wild that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand completely on end.

Before I could even close the truck door, Christopher hit the gas. The heavy Ford kicked up gravel, tearing down the driveway without a single backward glance, leaving me standing alone on the edge of the campus.

I took a deep breath, trying to steady the sudden, erratic pounding of my heart. The air felt thick. Too thick.

"Just stay invisible," I whispered to myself, gripping the heavy handle of my trunk. "Just pass the classes, find a girl to fake a relationship with, and stay alive."